As a pre-teen, he kept a beeper on his hip and acted as a lookout for drug dealers. If he spotted cops, he warned the bosses.

“That was like my first job at 11 years old,” he said.

That first job led Hill into a life of crime that ultimately put him behind bars.

More than 30 years later, Hill spends his days in a salon, cutting hair and thinking of ways to mentor children who might head down the path he’s already traveled.

On the streets

Hill’s grandmother raised him until she died before he was a teenager.

The 11-year-old boy had no relationship with his parents so he fended for himself.

“I was pretty much raised on the streets by drug dealers …” he said.

Hill said he was good at survival, breaking into cars and selling drugs to get by. When he was about 17 years old, Hill noticed a trend in the drug trade. What he peddled in New York sold for more money in the south. So Hill moved to Raleigh.

“I had the fancy cars, luxury homes and beautiful women,” Hill said of his life at 18.

But when you engage in shady activity in the dark, the light switch will eventually be turned on, he said.

Hill got busted for armed robbery.

Years in prison

He stepped into prison, sentenced to 18 years.

He was 20 and terrified.

“I was scared. Either you’re going to be a man or you’re going to be a wimp,” he said.

Ever a survivor, Hill acclimated to daily life behind bars.

Hill said emerged a different person. And he said he isn’t sure what would’ve happened to him if he had continued on the same road.

“Prison is not for no one… but between prison or death, I was lucky to go to prison,” he said.

Act of kindness

Hill came to Gastonia after his release – 38, with no family, homeless.

But he kept up appearances.

“I could look like a million bucks but be hurting inside,” he said.

One day Hill walked to a woman’s house who he knew sold single cigarettes. He was low on cash but wanted Newports.

The woman told him she was trying to get her kids ready for the beginning of the school year but had no money for haircuts.

Hill said he took his last $17 and bummed a few more to buy clippers. He cut the three boys’ hair.

“It wasn’t 30 minutes, and I had a line of boys wanting haircuts,” Hill said.

Hill returned to the neighborhood that weekend and trimmed boys’ hair for free so they would all sport new cuts for the beginning of school.

Kind acts in return

Hill was walking through the neighborhood one Sunday when a woman came out of a church. She said the congregation had heard about his act of kindness and wanted him to come inside.

Hill declined the offer, only to have the church’s pastor offer him an envelope of money.

Hill said he turned that down too, saying he doesn’t like to take handouts and worrying the cash would lead him back to old habits.

The pastor met up with Hill the next day and gave him haircutting supplies and tuition to a cosmetology school.

Hill started class.

“I was living at Lineberger Park at the time and had one pair of pants,” he said.

Someone at the school learned about Hill’s situation. During a weekly assembly an administrator did not name names but asked that people donate to help out a student in need.

He had $2.75 to his name, a sum he planned to spend at Bojangles’ that day. Instead, he dropped it in the donation pile.

Hill later learned the three buckets of cash were for him.

That money put Hill up in a hotel for three months while he attended classes.

Home away from home

Hill found a second home at Simply Sonji’s II Hair Care & Spa on South York Road.

Still an apprentice, Hill works alongside owner Sonji Williams.

The two share a talent for taming unruly locks and brainstorming about unifying the community.

Hill often talks to such kids and offers up haircuts if they’re a little shaggy.

Hill also wants to recruit those teens into a group he’s started called COG, the Children of God.

Recently baptized, Hill believes COG could do the community some good. He wants to bring together young men to help mow people’s grass for free. If the property owners want to make a donation, the money can be used to keep up the program.

Creating a new life

When Hill was a kid, no adults stopped him on the street to show concern for what he was doing.

Hill said he’s not going to follow that example.

Though he may be covered in tattoos, most kids aren’t intimidated by him, Hill said.

And while the kids roaming the streets of Gastonia are a priority for Hill, he said the most important child in his life is his 4-year-old son, Larry III.

Hill said he wants to be the motivator and supporter that he never had growing up.

As an adult, Hill said he gets much of that support within the four walls of the salon.

The only man working with a handful of women, Hill said the group sometimes argues like siblings, but the ups and downs make them a family.

And while he never saw cosmetology in his future, Hill said he’s happy in his new life.

“I never thought in a million years I’d be in a salon of all women doing hair,” he said. “A real man can be in a salon.”

You can reach Diane Turbyfill at 704-869-1817 and twitter.com/GazetteDiane.